INCIDENT AT HOWARD BEACH. The Case for Murder

Hardback. Late on the night of December 19, 1986, 4 black men were driving through the all-white community of Howard Beach, in the New York City suburb of Queens, when their car broke down. By the early hours of the next morning, one of them lay dead on the Belt Parkway and one had been beaten nearly to death with a tree limb and a baseball bat by a dozen local teenagers. In the months to come, "Howard Beach" became a code all over the world for the worst in racial tensions. The story behind the Howard Beach incident, its investigation, and the subsequent trial is a story of hatred, brutality, and deceit; of media outcry, political shuffling, and public manipulation; of a cast of characters ranging from petrified politicians (Queens DA John Santucci and former New York Mayor Edward Koch among them) and outraged black activists (attorney Alton Maddox and the Reverend Al Sharpton) to the quiet citizens of an insular suburb. But it was up to one man to bring the case to trial and steer it to its fair conclusion: Special Prosecutor Charles J. "Joe" Hynes. 305pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true-crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. Nr. F. in Nr. F. dw.